Centers

CEEDS generates policy recommendations from dialogue with experts in the commercial, scientific, civil, and national security fields to identify options for the most critical policy issues facing our future activities in space. CEEDS will bring the Institute’s well-known technical rigor, policy expertise, and non-partisan objectivity to bear on the space domain, to provide senior decision makers a better understanding of the complex policy options in this increasingly important sector.

The Center for Neurotechnology Studies (CNS) is directed by Dr. Jennifer Buss. CNS provides neutral, in-depth analysis of matters at the intersection of neuroscience and technology—neurotechnology—and public policy. The Center anticipates ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) associated with emerging neurotechnology, and shepherds constructive discourse on these issues. It provides a forum for reasoned consideration of issues both by subject area experts and by the public. The Center partners with the research community for discourse and consultation on ethically sound neurotechnology research and applications. The Center cultivates and stewards knowledge and discussion on the implications of neurotechnology in academic, administrative, entrepreneurial, regulatory, legislative and judicial enterprises. CNS serves as authoritative counsel to government agencies pursuing neurotechnology by providing expertise in the sciences, ethics, law and social policy.

Terrorism has been a permanent fixture in human history. It is evident that the beginning of the twenty-first century marks the beginning of a new age of terrorism. In contrast with older precedents, modern-day terrorism is widespread, institutionalized, technologically advanced,and global in its consequences. Raising the stakes of this challenge is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This alarming and dangerous trend increases the potential for "superterrorism"- biological, chemical, or nuclear violence - as well as the advent of information warfare and cyber-terrorism. As a member of the academic and research community, the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies has an intellectual obligation, as well as a moral and practical responsibility, to participate in the international effort to arrest the virus of terrorism. Accordingly, in 1998 the Institute established the International Center for Terrorism Studies to address the extensive issues surrounding the ever increasing anxiety of modern-day terrorism.

The International Center for Terrorism Studies (ICTS) is directed by Professor Yonah Alexander. Professor Alexander publishes numerous op-eds and articles and makes frequent appearances in international media.

The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies developed a ground-breaking methodology, known as the Cyber Readiness Index (CRI 2.0), to evaluate and measure a country’s preparedness levels for certain cybersecurity risks. The team of cyber readiness 2.0 experts apply the CRI 2.0 to provide a compelling and actionable review of a country’s policies, plans, laws, standards, market levers (e.g., incentives and regulations), and other initiatives. The resulting actionable blueprint enables a country to better understand its Internet-infrastructure dependencies and vulnerabilities and assess its commitment and maturity to closing the gap between its current cyber security posture and the national cyber capabilities needed to support its digital future.

The CRI 2.0 uses over seventy unique indicators across seven essential elements to discern operationally ready activities and identify areas for improvement in the following elements: national strategy, incident response, e-crime and law enforcement, information sharing, investment in R&D, diplomacy and trade, and defense and crisis response. Each of these essential elements, if pursued in tandem, can help a country develop a stronger security posture to defend against economic erosion from cyber insecurity. Each area of inquiry is assessed across three cyber readiness levels: fully operational, partially operational, or insufficient evidence. The results are averaged to create an overall readiness assessment per country.

The threat to each country’s networked systems and infrastructures is real and growing. Data breaches, criminal activity, service disruptions, and property destruction are becoming commonplace. The resources available to increase the resilience of a country’s infrastructure and decrease the exposure of the countries to damage, however, are finite. The CRI 2.0 offers a comprehensive, comparative, experience-based methodology to help national leaders chart a path toward a safer, more resilient digital future in a deeply cybered, competitive, and conflict- prone world.

The CRI 2.0 is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish and is being applied to 125 countries. While no country is cyber ready, there are countries that have developed effective mechanisms to achieve cyber readiness/preparedness and these programs and initiatives provide examples for other countries to learn from and possibly follow. As countries connect the next one to two billion people to the Internet and embrace next generation technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), the CRI 2.0 is a tool that can help identify and manage cybersecurity risks. The CRI 2.0 demonstrates how national security is closely intertwined with Internet connectivity and rapid adoption of ICT, which when secure, can lead to economic growth and prosperity.

The Center develops new ideas about the future directions of science and technology, formulates strategies on how to achieve revolutionary gains in that field, provides a forum to discuss the associated political, ethical, legal, and social issues, and informs the public and policymakers to solve vital societal problems."

The Center for Adaptation and Innovation (CAI) identifies and defines new and potentially disruptive defense capabilities. CAI assists senior defense leaders grappling with the most demanding issues and problems posed by a complex and uncertain security environment.

The vision of the Regulatory Science and Engineering Center (RSEC) at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is to always be the definitive source of information on developing and implementing regulatory policy based on science and technology. In order to achieve this primary objective, the mission of RSEC is to ensure its activities successfully achieve the following:

Build and maintain a comprehensive library of knowledge regarding the science behind making regulatory policy and the history that created the foundations of our current regulatory practices.Create projects and opportunities that furthers the understanding (and application) of regulatory science and engineering.Serve as a resource center for all individuals or organizations that attempt to practice regulatory science by establishing (and evolving) various tools and processes that can assist in the practice of using science and technology in developing regulatory policies (i.e. doing regulatory science).Taken together, the basic mission of RSEC is to inform the field of regulatory science by communicating regulatory science and engineering to the public, and provide advice to government agencies, academia and industry about applying regulatory science and engineering practices to their development and implementation of regulatory policy.

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Our Mission

The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is an independent, 501(c)(3), not-for-profit public policy research institute. The Institute identifies and aggressively shepherds discussion on key science and technology issues facing our society. From these discussions and forums, we develop meaningful science and technology policy options and ensure their implementation at the intersection of business and government.